Such a method is known from International patent applications WO01/62603 and WO02/086277, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,266,619and 6,775,578, US patent application US 2002/0100584 and from the following papers:
“Economically improving oil recovery by advanced reservoir management,” published by G. L. Ghiericiby in the Journal of Petroleum Science Technology. 8 (1992) 205-219,
“The road ahead to real-time oil and gas reservoir management” published by R. G. Smith and G. C. Maitland in Trans. Inst. Chem. 76A (July 1998) 539-552.
“From pore to pipeline, field-scale solutions,” published by A. Beamer et al. in Oilfield Review (Summer 1998), 2-19.
“Reservoir drainage with down hole permanent monitoring and control systems. Real-time integration of dynamic reservoir performance data and static reservoir model improves control decisions,” paper SPE 62937 presented by F. Nyhavn et al. at the 2000 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, Tex., USA, 1-4 October.
“Discussion on integrating monitoring data into the reservoir management process,” paper SPE 65150 presented by D. J. Rossi et al. at the SPE European Petroleum Conference, Paris, France, 24-25 Oct. 2000.
“Development of a marginal gas-condensate field using a novel integrated reservoir and production management approach,” paper SPE 68734 presented by Nygard et al. at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta, Indonesia, 17-19 Apr. 2001.
“Smart fields: How to generate more value from hydrocarbon resources” presented by P. K. A. Kapteijn at the 17th World Petroleum Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1-5 Sep. 2002, 2, 307-316.
“Self-learning reservoir management,” paper SPE 84064 presented by L. Saputelli et al. at the 2003 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Denver, Colo., USA, 5-8 October.
These publications disclose the concept of controlling the flow of hydrocarbons based on a model that is regularly updated using measured data. A problem associated with the concept disclosed in these publications is either that they do not teach how the necessary computations are performed, or it is proposed to use high-order (large scale) computer models which are very time-consuming. Another problem in using such high-order computer models is that they contain more parameters than can be uniquely determined from a limited amount of measurements. As a result these updated high-order models are only of limited value to be used for the control of hydrocarbon flow.
SPE paper 79674, “Generation of Low-Order Reservoir Models using System-Theoretical Concepts”, presented at the SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium in Houston, Tex., USA, 3-5 Feb. 2003 by T. Heijn, R. Markovinovic, and J. D. Jansen discloses five methods to derive low-order numerical models of two-phase (oil-water) reservoir flow from a high order reservoir model with the aim to develop computationally efficient algorithms for history matching, optimization and the design of control strategies for smart wells. SPE paper 79674 indicates that a reservoir model is called a high-order model if it consists of a large number, typically 103-106 of variables (pressures and saturations) and that optimization using high-order reservoir models is computationally very intensive and that there is a need to reduce high-order reservoir models to low order reservoir models, which typically have 101-103 variables, before use in optimization. However, SPE paper 79674 does not teach how the reduction methods can be used in combination with updating techniques and optimization techniques for the control of hydrocarbon flow in the subsurface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,519 discloses a method for automated control of a reservoir on the basis of a reservoir model. A disadvantage of this method is that the selected reservoir model may be less accurate than alternative high order and/or low order reservoir models, and that in the course of time the most accurate mathematical reservoir model may be different from a mathematical reservoir model that most accurately reflected the flux of fluid and/or other fluid properties during an earlier phase of production of hydrocarbon fluids from the reservoir.